After a long hiatus away from Britain Under Steam, I spent some time at the weekend working on the financial side of the game. This is in many ways more important than the track building aspects. I've also found it harder to get a handle on, which partly explains why I've been slow to start on it. Eventually I decided that I'd done as much preparatory work as I could, and now just had to dive in, try some figures, and see how well they worked.
I focused on the start of the game: what prices companies can be floated at, how much cash players should start with, and how much private railways should cost. The result wasn't too bad. I only had to tweak a few figures here and there to get something that should be a reasonably playable game. I was able to lay at least one issue to bed, and to formulate some of the remaining questions I need to answer.
One issue I looked at was the "rungs" on the stock market around the start price. Many 18xx games have less than £10 between spaces - e.g. £67 & £72, or £60, £65 & £70. I want to divide all prices by 10, so I wanted to check that spaces valued £60, £70, £80 ... worked fine. And they did.
I will revisit the issue of how many shares are required to start a company. So far, I've been assuming two (i.e. 40% of a five-share company). A result of this, if the minimum start price is £60, is that someone could start two companies with just £240. This would not encourage players to invest in each other's companies from the start, which is my goal, so I may change this to a more traditional 60% of a company. This would make the minimum cost to float a company be £180, so I could add an additional £170 to the starting cash which players could only spend on each other's companies.
An alternative idea, which I had right at the start of this project, would be to charge a £50 fee for starting a company. So although the shares might only cost £120, the total cost might be £170. I'll experiment with this. There is an attraction to keeping the two shares to float rule, which is that there are more shares available for other players to invest in; they just need an incentive to actually do so.
Some other questions popped up, which I will leave for future posts.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Game components
I print most of my components on card, and laminate share certificates and such like. Recently I've been looking for some markers.
The best ones are from SpielMaterial in Germany. They're nice round wooden disks in a variety of colours. On the web site, look under "Pawns and Other Figures" and then "Discs". I also bought some 15x10mm cylinders as possible markers for merged companies.
Northumbria Games provide a plastic alternative. They're pretty good too. The web site calls them "15x5mm counters". I also bought some "14x10mm cylinders", but these are 14mm long and 10mm diameter, rather than the other way around.
For a much cheaper option, you could try PlugItDowel. These are decorative finishes for furniture makers and the like; they're intended to cover screw holes and the like. The flat head plugs aren't perfectly cylindrical; one end is slightly smaller than the other, but they are a servicable option.
On a different note, Leisure Games are selling a box of coloured train markers for Euro Games such as Steam and Ticket To Ride. If I move Britain Under Steam beyond the tile mechanism of 18xx, these could be very useful.
The best ones are from SpielMaterial in Germany. They're nice round wooden disks in a variety of colours. On the web site, look under "Pawns and Other Figures" and then "Discs". I also bought some 15x10mm cylinders as possible markers for merged companies.
Northumbria Games provide a plastic alternative. They're pretty good too. The web site calls them "15x5mm counters". I also bought some "14x10mm cylinders", but these are 14mm long and 10mm diameter, rather than the other way around.
For a much cheaper option, you could try PlugItDowel. These are decorative finishes for furniture makers and the like; they're intended to cover screw holes and the like. The flat head plugs aren't perfectly cylindrical; one end is slightly smaller than the other, but they are a servicable option.
On a different note, Leisure Games are selling a box of coloured train markers for Euro Games such as Steam and Ticket To Ride. If I move Britain Under Steam beyond the tile mechanism of 18xx, these could be very useful.
Monday, 17 May 2010
Varying the Number of Companies
It's almost a year since I first posted here regarding the number of companies to include in the game, and over 6 months since I decided to remove some of the regional companies. Since then I have had a working set of 11 companies.
More recently, I decided to vary the number of companies for different numbers of players. In part, this is because 11 companies would be potentially unwieldy for three players. Also, having many more companies than players increases the opportunities for wanton asset stripping. My current draft has 2n+1 companies, where n is the number of players. I reason that each player should have the chance to start two companies (which is a rule of thumb I use when playing various combinations of 1825).
Thomas Lehmann's 1846 takes a similar approach. Tom's game uses n+2 companies, of which 4 are included in every game and the remainder are drawn randomly. This last element is appealing; it gives some variation between different games.
I'm currently wondering whether my 2n+1 approach is better than Tom's n+2. Many 18xx games use a fixed number of companies for different numbers of players, which suggests that a narrower range may suffice. Perhaps I could use n+5, giving 8-11 companies instead of 7-13. On the other hand, the BoardGameGeek review of 1846 suggests that it's rare for players to start a second company. That's not the sort of game I'm after.
Also, an n+5 formula would mean that for 5 players, the game would have exactly 2n companies. I'm worried that this might be a mistake, by being too symmetrical.
Whichever approach I take, I will need to vary the number of trains available as well (as indeed Tom did in 1846).
More recently, I decided to vary the number of companies for different numbers of players. In part, this is because 11 companies would be potentially unwieldy for three players. Also, having many more companies than players increases the opportunities for wanton asset stripping. My current draft has 2n+1 companies, where n is the number of players. I reason that each player should have the chance to start two companies (which is a rule of thumb I use when playing various combinations of 1825).
Thomas Lehmann's 1846 takes a similar approach. Tom's game uses n+2 companies, of which 4 are included in every game and the remainder are drawn randomly. This last element is appealing; it gives some variation between different games.
I'm currently wondering whether my 2n+1 approach is better than Tom's n+2. Many 18xx games use a fixed number of companies for different numbers of players, which suggests that a narrower range may suffice. Perhaps I could use n+5, giving 8-11 companies instead of 7-13. On the other hand, the BoardGameGeek review of 1846 suggests that it's rare for players to start a second company. That's not the sort of game I'm after.
Also, an n+5 formula would mean that for 5 players, the game would have exactly 2n companies. I'm worried that this might be a mistake, by being too symmetrical.
Whichever approach I take, I will need to vary the number of trains available as well (as indeed Tom did in 1846).
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